IT CV and Recruitment Advice
IT recruitment agencies are commonly used by organisations searching for staff. The organisation pays the agency, usually 15% to 30% of the salary, to take on the workload associated with advertising and short listing potential employees.
This is usually considered a fair price to pay by companies, as it saves them so much time and effort. The widespread use of recruitment agencies in the IT sector however does have implications for job seekers. The following tips will help you get the most from your dealings with recruitment agents.
Don’t take rejections personally
Recruitment agencies exist to make a profit, so their agents spent their time with job seekers that they believe are most likely to get a job, and therefore earn them commission. Their failure to contact you after you have made an application through them does not mean that you are a poor candidate. If this happens then don’t take it to heart, just use an alternative.
Use keywords in your CV
Quite often recruiters and agents use CV database searches to find potential candidates. So for example, they may run a search for CVs that contain “.Net developer” three or more times. Bear this in mind when writing your CV. What sort of job are you looking for and what qualifications are required by recruiters for these roles? Make sure that the most important terms appear a number of times in your CV.
Be proactive
Even if you have submitted your CV to a number of job boards and recruitment agents, you should not sit back and wait for the phone to ring. Proactively search for opportunities and aim to make one or two quality applications each day.
The scatter gun approach does not work.
Remember that when it comes to job applications quality, not quantity, is most important. Aim to impress by tailoring individual CVs and covering letters for every role you apply for, relating content back to the job specification.
Protect your personal data.
If you receive a call out of the blue from a recruitment agency offering a vacancy, they may have come across your details by purchasing your data from one of the larger job boards. With this in mind, be sure to quiz the agent by asking them how they came across your details. Also ask who the job opportunity is with and what the exact salary on offer is. If the agent holds back from telling you, you may wish to discontinue the call as they may just be collecting data for their database rather than promoting an actual opportunity.
By being more aware, you can greatly improve the efficiency of your job search. Alternatively you can use a direct employer IT job board and bypass recruitment agencies altogether.
